1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of speech recognition and, more particularly, to speech-based user interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Speech recognition is the process by which an acoustic signal is converted to a set of text words by a computer. These recognized words may then be used in a variety of computer software applications for purposes such as document preparation, data entry and command and control. Speech recognition is generally a difficult problem due to the wide variety pronunciations, individual accents and speech characteristics of individual speakers. For example, the speaker may speak very rapidly or softly, slur words or mumble. When transcribing speech dictation, this may result in: spoken words being converted into different words (“hold” recognized as “old”); improperly conjoined spoken words (“to the” recognized as “tooth”); and spoken words recognized as homonyms (“boar” instead “bore”). However, when controlling and navigating through speech-enabled applications by voice, incorrect recognition or non-recognition typically results in the execution of unintended commands or no command at all.
To rectify incorrectly recognized voice commands, conventional speech recognition systems include a user-initiated interface or window containing a list of possible commands. The list may be a listing of the entire speech command vocabulary, or a partial listing constrained by acoustic, language or context modeling techniques known in the art. The constrained lists are much more user friendly, since the speaker does not have to read through a lengthy list to find an intended command. These constrained lists can be generated, for example, by executing an algorithm, as is known in the art, one much like a spell checking program in word processing applications, to search a command grammar for words with similar characteristics as the incorrectly recognized words. Once the list is generated, the user may select the intended command by voice or input device. Alternatively, the user may key in the desired command in a text field within the user interface.
One of the problems with a user-initiated interface or window containing a list of possible commands is that the command list does not change as users become more familiar with certain commands. However, for less commonly-used commands, the user must still view all of the possible commands, including the commonly-used commands with which the user is familiar. Such is the case with respect to both corrective types graphical user interfaces (“GUI”) as well as so called “What-Can-I-Say” dialog boxes or interfaces.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to adjust the command list, thereby highlighting less commonly-used commands and/or reducing the salience of more commonly-used commands. This would reduce the visual search time for a user, thereby increasing the user's efficiency and/or speed of using the speech recognition system.